Wrong Turn 2 (2007)

Directed By: Joe Lynch

Mutated mountain family from West Virginia strike again, and this time on Henry Rollins, and his group of rookie acting friends. A reality show set to film down the same dead end turns into a survival of the fleshiest. Henry Rollins puts up a good fight with one flesh-eating hillbilly, but unfortunately, this sequel in reality didn’t size up to the first one. Wrong Turn depicts cannibalistic mountain men who hunt the hills with traps and barbwire for flesh. Unsuspecting tourists take wrong turns, and find themselves with flat tires and axed jaws instead of leisure camping trips. The few that survive stumble into a junkyard, and find they are one in a hundred who have trespassed on the wrong land.  My argument; Are city folk always this unintelligent? And, are hicks always portrayed as toothless pig farmers with hatchets? Deliverance has done wonders for future splatter flicks ahead. The concept tickles me to death. I’ve lived down a dirt road on the side of a mountain for a majority of my existence. Not once, have I had to fend off a cannibals living off the foot of the hills with my bare hands. I’ve took every wrong turn from here to TN, and have yet to encounter any inbred, deformed mountain men. In conclusion, if badlands like these continue to scare off city folks with cell phones clipped to their earlobes, then that’s one less accident on my driving record. Besides I’ll just call through the mountains for Uncle Jethro with his tow truck to clean up the scene. And believe you, me, Uncle Jethro doesn’t leave anything left on his plate.

-Smutstrutter

Thank God it's Friday  (1978)
Directed by Robert Klane
Written by Barry Armyan Bernstein
With Jeff Goldblum, Donna Summer, The Commodores, Debra Winger, Terri Nunn, Valerie Landsberg.

Quick, name a movie that features pre-soft new wave rocker superstar Terri Nunn, the ever reptilian Jeff Goldblum as well disco queen Donna Summer, Debra Winger and Lionel Richie before he became famous as an anorexic's Dad....

As a kid, one of my occasional babysitters was a neighborhood college student who sometimes showed up for his gig in polyester disco finery. If myself and my brothers were really lucky, he'd  sometimes even bring his Chic records over and end the evening by showing off his latest moves. I could hardly wait to be old enough to do the same.

Times change rather quickly and of course by the time I was my former minder's age, the idea of shaking my booty under strobe lights to the latest 12" mix of some horrible dance song wasn't even an anathema to me it was so beyond conception. At sixteen I enjoyed blasting The Business' "Smash The Discos". At 21 I didn't even bother. The closest I could even find for a disco to smash was the neighborhood dance club "Choices" on Bow St. in Somerville, which Fridays was filled with the local hardworking Haitians blowing off a little steam. I suppose I could have gone down to Goth club "Man Ray" in Central Square to lob a brick or two, but that would have been equally pointless and mean spirited.

Age brings a certain refreshing neutrality. Some of my cohorts from the old days still lovingly clasp their prejudices to themselves like Linus did with his security blanket. Maybe I've gone beyond the point of toothless fogeydom, but I don't have enough energy currently to pretend not to like an Yvonne Elliman or Bee-Gees song, or claim I'm being ironic while I do so.

Still, it's unlikely that you'll see me doing the "Bus Stop" or "Le Freak" anytime in public or private very soon.

However,  I can watch disco dreck vehicles' like "Thank God..." and recommend it to Sleazegrinder readers for it's sheer oddity. Anyway, disco itself was pretty sleazy when you think about it. If I recall correctly, The Village People even had a record called "Live and Sleazy". 

It's no big surprise that one of the funders and producers of this movie was Neil Bogart, founder of Casablanca (KISS, Village People) Records. The idea seems to have been the soundtrack that was on his imprint, no doubt hoping to emulate the mega-sucess of the far more cohesive "Saturday Night Fever".  Bogart, who was a band wagon jumper and entrepreneur extraordinaire, was behind the pioneering bubble gum label Buddha Records, as well as someone who before his untimely death was apparently ready to scuttle the sinking disco ship for Noo Wave. If  I sound catty, I'm not trying to be...accounts of Bogart read like that of Kim Foley minus the nasty predatorial aspects, meanness and general cynicism.

Since it's essentially an advertisement for Casablanca artists like Summer, nobody seems to have spent much time on things like plot, character development, dialogue and so forth. In other words, it's like just about every other movie I watch for "Garbage Island".  Also high on the annoyance list is the fact that the makers of this movie come from the school of "repeat a visual gag or bad line enough times and it will become funny". In the end though, it just makes the movie that much more of an enjoyably bad watching experience.This is more a cup of whirling froth than a movie, a thin excuse to sell records. There have been worse ploys though.

 The story, insofar as there actually is one, contains the usual show biz cliche of interweaving story lines, think HO scale Robert Altman minus any sort of talent, insight or good script. This includes jailbait cuties (Nunn and future "Fame" star Landsberg) enjoying the forbidden fruit of sneaking out, huckstering DJ,  Goldblum's bit as a  totally sleazy club owner, and Summers' unconvincing _turn as a struggling hopeful. (Her stage grabbing antics seem more like a disco beer hall putsch than the desperate action of a starving artist, but what the hell, any excuse to jimmy her hit "Last Dance" into the soundtrack I suppose).

One thing really jumped out at me while watching this. Either people were  uglier back then and I don't remember it, or celebs were actually allowed to look like real live human beings. Somehow I feel like it must be the latter. There is absolutely no way that a chanteuse of ordinary prettiness like Summer would get to be front and center of a movie like this today. Most current "singers" filling Summers' platforms today resemble frighteningly life like Bratz dolls. Ditto The Commodores, who look about as prepossessing as a group of YMCA lifeguards until they change into their extremely odd (KISS inspired perhaps) stage gear.

For cinema trivia buffs, sleazy disco impresario Paul Jabara has an extended cameo here as the requisite horny boy with the lame pick up lines. Eagle eyed cinema mavens may remember him as the creepy queen in "Day Of The Locust" although to the rest of the world he was just a mega successful songwriter, producer and apparently the designer the red AIDS ribbon. (Jabara himself passed away from the disease in the early 1990's).

Do I need to tell you that there is a dance contest in this movie, a live performance by a big name group, and a happy resolution to all the story lines? Probably not. But I may need to warn you that watching this movie is actually pretty fun, even as you roll your eyes. Incidentally, the title seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the film, which is par for the course. Look for Lionel Richie's strangely off tune, no wave sax solo, too. Who was behind all this anyway? Oh right, Neil Bogart....

-Sascha G

The Flesh Eaters (1964) DVD
Starring Byron Sanders, Martin Kosleck, Barbara Wilkin
Directed by Jack Curtis
Dark Sky Films

"There's something inside me! And IT'S EATING ITS WAY OUT!"

Top-notch early gore picture about a trio of stranded travelers (pilot Sanders, boozy starlet on the wane Wilkin, and Rita Morley as her nubile secretary) who are forced by a storm to take shelter on a remote island (played by Montauk, Long Island). The tiny patch of land turns out to be inhabited by a German scientist (longtime movie Nazi Kosleck), who reveals that the island is surrounded by a tide of microscopic, flesh-eating organisms. The castaway's attempts to flee the island go south when it's revealed that the scientist is not just studying the little munchers but is partly responsible for their discovery – and plans to use his new guests as the bait in his latest test.

A combination of quality production value and sheer ballsiness sets The Flesh Eaters apart from the rest of the '60s indie horror dogpile. Performances are solid, especially Kosleck (who oozes distrustful vibes from his first second onscreen) and Ray Tudor as goony beatnik Omar, who joins the castaways midway through the movie via a convenient handmade raft. The actors are aided immeasurably by scriptwriter Arnold Drake; a writer for DC Comics' Deadman and Doom Patrol (as well as the amazing sexploitation sickie Who Killed Teddy Bear?), Drake lends heavy pulp flavor to the picture with his brassy dialogue as well as hints of leering sex and forbidden science. First-time director Curtis (an editor and voice-over artist for Americanized versions of '60s Japanese cartoons like Speed Racer; that's his voice as the DJ in the film's creepy opening) and editor Radley Metzger (on his way to becoming a softcore/hardcore legend) keep the fat to the barest minimum (the comic relief and obligatory romance are barely present). And the special effects are an impressive blend of budget slight-of-hand (the phosphorescent Flesh Eaters themselves were created by scratching the film with a pin) and unrestrained bloodshed that compares favorably with (if not surpasses) Herschell Gordon Lewis' efforts from the same period. In short, The Flesh Eaters is a Creature Feature with guts, a black-and-white beast fest that delivers the goods that every other Saturday afternoon monster rally only promised.

Dark Sky's DVD presents the theatrical version of The Flesh Eaters in widescreen; anyone who's seen the movie on late-night TV or on bootleg knows that the gore and/or titillating aspects are usually trimmed to some degree, but not here. Some VHS versions also contain a short sequence that showed Nazis experimenting with the Flesh Eaters on human test subjects; that's also included here, though as an extra, along with outtakes from that scene that features some nudity. A fistful of trailers and radio spots ("THEY ONLY EAT FLESH!") round out the extras.

– Paul Gaita

Evils of the Night (1984)
Starring Aldo Ray, Neville Brand, Tina Louise, John Carradine
Directed by Mardi Rustam
Shriek Show

If I told you the plot for Evils of the Night, you probably wouldn’t believe me, but here goes anyway: a small cadre of aliens, led by a cranky John Carradine and Julie Newmar in hot pants, arrives on Earth with a vague intent to steal human blood. To accomplish this, they employ a pair of semi-retarded mechanics (Aldo Ray and Neville Brand, both hip-deep on bum kicks), who prowl the local forest for horny teens in full make-out mode. Their victims, which include Karrie Emerson from Chopping Mall and ‘80s XXX talent Crystal Breeze, are brought to what appears to be an functioning but empty hospital and drained of their platelets by Tina Louise (who may or may not be an alien as well) and her staff of interstellar nurses in short-shorts. The whole plan is riddled with problems from the get-go – the kidnapped test subjects’ blood is no good (and the experiment itself tends to kill them), and as Carradine sourly notes, the whole invasion was scheduled during the summer, when school was out of session (!). Tapping Ray and Brand as their bagmen proves to be a bad idea as well, as neither seem capable of keeping their paws off their victims, and inevitably butcher them when their slobbery advances are rejected. Compared to this downtrodden crew, the fey extraterrestrials from Plan Nine from Outer Space seem positively enlightened.

I remember seeing the one-sheet for Evils of the Night in an oversized edition of Variety back in ’82 or ’83 and thinking, “Wow, I gotta see this!” (take a gander at Shriek Show’s cover art, which reproduces the original poster, and tell me you wouldn’t feel the same way). Twenty-five years later, I’m pleased to report that the movie pretty much delivers what its poster promised – chicks with big boobs being drained of blood. That right there is a positive for most sleaze beasts, but they will have to endure what only feels like hours of aimless direction by Mardi Rustam (producer of several Al Adamson movies and Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive), the debasement of several faded actors (especially the dying-by-the-second Brand, who at one point voices his desire to “hump” one of his captives), and page after page of nonsensical dialogue. Smut fans will note how the mix of endless blather and hard-R fucking makes the film resemble a mid-‘80s hardcore title – and wotta surprise, screenwriter Philip Dennis Connors penned Caught from Behind 8, Racquel’s Treasure Hunt, and several other porn pics. The presence of adult stars like the aforementioned Ms. Breeze, Amber Lynn, Jody Swafford, and Jerry Butler certainly helps that notion along.

Shriek Show’s DVD includes a homemade trailer for the pic, as well as a brief gallery of poster and VHS cover art, as well as spots for The Being and other SS releases. The audio for the first third of the movie sounds like it was remastered at the bottom of a grain silo, which results in lots of echoing dialogue and an unintended Wall of Sound effect on the movie’s two original songs, a pair of pop stunners performed by Eddie Mekka, better known as The Big Ragu from Laverne and Shirley. Wow and double wow.

– Paul Gaita

Rise: Blood Hunter (2006) DVD
Starring Lucy Liu, Michael Chiklis, James D’Arcy
Directed by Sebastian Gutierrez
Sony Pictures

This thriller from Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert’s Ghost House Pictures stars off promisingly, with L.A. Weekly reporter Lucy Liu investigating a teenage Goth-vampire scene and encountering a pair of real-life bloodsuckers (D’Arcy and Carla Gugino), who drain her of vital juices and leave her for dead. Liu comes to in the local morgue and transforms from brassy pencil pusher to crossbow-toting angel of vengeance; she later partners with boozy cop Michael Chiklis, whose daughter also fell victim to D’Arcy. Gutierrez knows how to write believable hard-boiled dialogue (and Liu knows how to deliver it), and Rise: Blood Hunter (which was simply titled Rise when I visited its L.A. set for Fangoria a couple of years ago) might’ve been a fun blend of gritty pulp action and gory horror. Unfortunately, Gutierrez spoils his fresh take by making D’Arcy and Gugino the same fey, black-clad hipsters given to speechifying about sex and death and humans as cattle we’ve seen in vampire movies since The Hunger, and his endless bouncing between Liu’s past and present gets real tiresome in a hurry. You also have to call into question any picture which offers cameos by Robert Forster and Mako and lots of nudity from Liu, then squanders that good will by giving bit parts to Marilyn Manson and Nick Lachey.

The unrated DVD extends the original running time by a whopping 25 minutes (much of which could’ve been trimmed away to no ill effect), and is filled out by four throwaway behind-the-scenes featurettes and the original trailer.

 – Paul Gaita

 _____________________________________________________